In recent rapid progress of the information industry, various information processing systems have been developed, and various recording methods and devices suitable for use in these information-processing systems have also been developed and put to practical use.
Examples of the commercialized recording processes include silver photographic, electrophotographic, inkjet recording, thermal recording, sublimation transfer, and thermal transfer processes, and the like. It has been desired high quality image having high surface gloss in addition to image sharpness and vivid hue toward all of the above recording processes.
Among the above recording processes, inkjet recording process, for example, has been widely used not only in offices but also in homes, because the inkjet process allows printing on various recording materials and the hardware (devices) thereof is relatively cheaper, more compact, and more silent. In addition, in the recent trend of inkjet printers toward higher-resolution and in the progress of the hardware (devices), a variety of media for inkjet recording has been developed, and more recently, there are some inkjet printers available that allow printing of so-called photograph-like high-quality images.
Examples of the inkjet recording media are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 55-51583, 56-157, 57-107879, 57-107880, 59-230787, 62-160277, 62-184879, 62-183382, and 64-11877, and recording materials prepared by coating a silicon-containing pigment such as silica and a water-based binder on a paper substrate are known. In addition, the inkjet recording media prepared by coating after treatment with an aqueous solution containing a cationic polyelectrolyte, as described, for example, in JP-A No. 2-113986, and those prepared by coating after treatment with an aqueous solution containing colloidal silica and a cationic polyelectrolyte, as described in JP-A No. 2-274587, are proposed as ink-jet recording materials given with glossiness.
The support for the recording material commonly used has been paper, and the paper has function as an ink absorbing layer. However it has been recently requested a photograph-like recording material having a texture similar to that of silver photographic printing paper. Because the recording materials having paper support have problems in glossiness, texture, water resistance, cockling after recording (wrinkle or waviness), and others, resin-laminated papers having the layers of a polyolefin resin such as polyethylene on both faces of the paper (polyolefin resin-coated papers) have been used widely, such as those described in JP-A Nos. 13-270232, 13-96898, 13-63205, 12-351270, 12-522649 and the like.
Such polyolefin resin-coated papers are generally used as silver photographic printing papers, and are better in photographic texture such as touch and strength than synthetic films, typified by polyethylene terephthalate.